


Resignation

by silver_penny



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Asexual Benny Watts, Asexual Character, Benny's POV, Canon Compliant, Episode s01e06: Adjournment, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Internalized Aphobia, Light Angst, but not on a light subject, exactly how it happens on the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27717506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_penny/pseuds/silver_penny
Summary: Benny Watts admires Beth for her chess, her focus, her dark wit and her willingness to meet him challenge for challenge. It takes several months and Arthur Levertov before it occurs to him that he’s supposed to admire her for something else.
Relationships: Benny Watts/Cleo (mentioned), Beth Harmon & Benny Watts, Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Comments: 7
Kudos: 98





	Resignation

“Forget it,” he’d said, and he’d been serious. His life was chess, and if Beth Harmon wanted an even shot at the Russian players than there would be no time nor mental energy to spare on anything else. And he’d seen her from afar, had watched her progress for years. Had seen her smash and charm her way through chess etiquette and chess players alike, had spoken to the shell shocked champions left staring dazedly at their opponent in her wake. If they were going to have a shot at the Russians than they needed established boundaries; if he had to spell them out himself on the concrete floor of his New York apartment then so be it.

In retrospect, he’d possibly been too judgmental going in. Beth was arrogant, and cocky, and funny and clever, and most importantly she lived and breathed the game the same way he did. They played new games, and replayed old games, and belted out song lyrics in the middle of the night. She left her vices at the door to his apartment and in return he fed her everything he knew, every trick he could dig up, played harder and faster and stronger against her every night than he had in years, since he’d dragged himself hand over hand to the top of the US Championships. It took every ounce of his self-regard and personal pride not to reveal in any way just how hard she was making him work. Crouched over the third chessboard that night, staring down Beth’s low, insistent “again”, he was no longer sure if he’d succeeded. _Russians_ , he reminded himself. _Teamwork_.

Watching Hilton and Arthur stare unabashedly at Beth in the safe confines of his apartment – watching _Cleo_ , of all people, tease her and compliment her and admire the line of her jaw – was a cold intrusion of normal life into the chess kingdom the two of them had built. By the time the girls came over with the food, he was reaching for the alcohol, and by the time Arthur shot him a low, suggestive look over her head, he knew he had made a mistake. Letting Beth wipe the floor with him, again and again and again, felt like correcting some awful imbalance in his own soul, some part of him ashamed of having wanted her for her chess, and her wit, and nothing more. The part that saw, all of a sudden and as if from high above, a beautiful young woman sleeping for months on the floor of his apartment, and recognized this as failure in some obscure and critical way.

After he closed the door behind them, he could feel it curling dark and dirty in his stomach and chalked it up to the first drinks he’d touched in months. He gave Beth the credit she was due and moved away. An old, unbidden memory stopped him, pulled him back to the doorway to his bedroom, forced the confrontation he’d been avoiding all evening long. _You’re just too in love with yourself_ , Cleo had sighed, in that French way of hers, all condescension and pity. _You just need to find the right person, hm? Someone who can defeat the great Benny Watts._ He’d thought he’d given up on this long ago, long ago, he’d picked chess for himself, had picked chess instead. But if there could be a right person – if there could be someone –

Beth Harmon had beat him that night in a way that no one had done in fifteen years.

So he turned around in his doorway, caught her before she moved on, and pushed aside his misgivings, for just one more time. He reached all the way back to that drink they’d had in Ohio, to the first time he’d shut her down. He tossed her own line back at her and then he drew her in.

Afterwards he knew it had been a mistake. It had been nothing, it had been – she’s so pleased, murmuring about how it should be, and he’s sick and humiliated and he doesn’t want to hurt her. Benny Watts closes his eyes over the sting and thinks about chess. “You should play the Sicilian,” he says, finally. This is common, well-trod ground. This is okay. Beth stiffens and turns over, but he doesn’t have the energy to care anymore. He sinks down beside her and lets himself shake silently to sleep.


End file.
